|
@briandavidearp | |||||
|
For more on falsifiability in the context of findings in psychology, see my paper with David Trafimow: frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
Here is the original thread twitter.com/briandavidearp…; and here is the original paper psyarxiv.com/pqg3a/
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
Okay ... one more thing that's come up. As noted, we found female participants rated boy pain higher & this was speculatively interpreted as evidence of sexism. If we'd found that men rated boy pain higher, I proposed this, too, would likely be interpreted as evidence of sexism.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
And that made me wonder if - without some additional building-out of the theory - this raised a problem for some views of sexism in that they might be unfalsifiable (opposite evidence would be seen as equally theory supportive). But one tweeter suggested that the finding could
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
have been 'opposite' along a different dimension: girl pain could have been rated higher than boy pain (by either men or women). True enough. Suppose we'd found that participants rated a girl as experiencing more pain than a boy given an identical display of pain. One possibility
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
is that headlines would have read, "Girls' pain is taken more seriously than boys' pain, contra sexism." Or, the finding could still have been interpreted as evidence of sexism: "Girls are seen as oversensitive to pain & not as tough as boys." So my point was just that, in our
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
study, we did not measure "sexism" nor design our experiment to be able to find evidence in favor of any particular conceptualization or operationalization of sexism. Had we intended to see whether sexist prejudice against girls would lead to different pain ratings for boys
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
versus girls given an identical display of pain, we (1) would need to have conducted a very different of experiment w a different design & different measures, including measures of, for example, endorsement of sexist attitudes (on some clear conception/theory of sexism), and
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
(2) we would have to have set up our hypotheses in such a way that, if the data turned out such-and-so, this could count *against* our hypothesis. By contrast, if, no matter which way the data came out, we could have found a way to interpret this as being consistent with
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
our particular theory/conceptualization/operationalization of sexism, then our hypothesis would not be meaningfully falsifiable and that would be a troubling feature. And based on the way the media coverage was playing out, it seemed plausible to me that, at least a popular 'lay'
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
theory of sexism, might indeed have elements that are unfalsifiable in the present context. E.g., the coverage from Jezebel (jezebel.com/girls-pain-tak…) seemed to just assume that the findings "confirmed" deeply entrenched sexism. But a single finding can't confirm any such thing. pic.twitter.com/7PEJ8n4EJW
|
||
|
|
||
|
Wolliw
@simplexity777
|
23. pro |
|
Great article. Might assign in the doctoral course i teach.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
23. pro |
|
Cool!
|
||
|
|
||
|
Pamela Paresky (Habits of a Free Mind)
@PamelaParesky
|
22. velj |
|
This is fascinating. (And your research is too.)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian D. Earp
@briandavidearp
|
22. velj |
|
Wow, thanks!
|
||
|
|
||
|
Hannah Wallen has been misrepresented by Bloomberg
@Oneiorosgrip
|
22. velj |
|
I wonder if the socialization of girls to express their pain vs the socialization of boys to "tough it out" might have contributed to your study's results. We learn we're expected to complain if hurt, and that boys generally won't. By the time we are adults...
|
||
|
|
||